1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to the conversion of highly stretchable web and film materials from large supply reels to a multiplicity of smaller reels. More specifically, the present invention relates to creped paper rewinding machines.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Creped paper as is used for decorative and display purposes is most efficiently manufactured in web widths of approximately five feet or greater and in reel handled lengths of two thousand feet or greater. However, one of the greater uses of crepe paper is for decorative streamers which require dimensions of one and one-half to four inches of width and twenty to five-hundred feet of length. Accordingly, five foot wide reels of the material are converted to a multiplicity of streamer size reels by a machine conducted process of longitudinally slitting a full width web as it is unwound from a reel into a plurality of streamer width strips and simultaneously rewinding such streamers on separate, narrow reels. Intermittently, the unwinding-slitting-rewinding process is stopped to transversely sever the streamer length from the oncoming web supply and remove the resulting, small, rewound reels.
Although some fabrics and plastic films are similar to crepe paper in the characteristic of tensile elongation, crepe paper is somewhat unique in the low value and nature of this characteristic. Consequently, converting and rewinding machines adapted to handle creped paper must have extremely sensitive tension controls. This necessity is further complicated by intermittent running cycles which impose wide range acceleration loads on the web.
The prior art is crowded with techniques of web tension control in various, continuous feed machines. The following U.S. Pat. Nos. are representative of the scope of such techniques: 3,214,110; 3,419,771; 3,589,578; 3,746,271; 3,780,961; and 3,927,844.
A frequently used feature of many prior art tension control systems is direct speed control over the primary machine power source. Another and older technique of tension control is the use of spring tensioned dancer rolls. Each of these techniques have respective advantages and disadvantages. For example, the familiar dancer roll technique is mechanically simple and operatively reliable but has limited response capacity. A sustained excess tension load on the web will move the dancer roll to the limit of traveling capacity whereupon the load will be transmitted past the dancer roll station.
Web tension control systems which act directly on the machine drive have considerable response scope for correction of long duration tension changes but also have relatively slow response times. Also, the load sensory and signal translation schemes are complicated and often unreliable.
It is, therefore, an objective of the present invention to provide a tension control system suitable for crepe paper rewinding having both rapid and sustained response capacity.
Another object of the present invention is to teach a rewind reel starting system having an automatic feed of empty mandrels to the rewinding station.
Another object of the present invention is to teach a semi-automatic strip end-tail cutting mechanism that simultaneously spots each end-tail with adhesive to hold each streamer reel firmly together following removal from the rewinding mandrel.
Another object of the present invention is to teach a dancer roll tension response system wherein the dancer roll constitutes a tension monitoring sensor for a speed control system.
Another object of the present invention is to teach a system for automatic two-speed control over the primary drive power source that is responsive to the rewind streamer length.